If you like wearing hoodies and hats and you like to shop in Topeka, you just might be out of luck if Mayor Bill Bunten has his way.

According to the AP:

Mayor Bill Bunten says he’s suggesting
that the city allow a retail store to
ask people who come in wearing a
hooded sweat shirt or ball cap to take
it off their head so surveillance
camera can see them. Police Chief Ron
Miller also recommended a similar
measure to discourage robberies.

Topekans say the proposal is both “socialist” and “communist,” and one local business owner said she’d lose customers. Bunten said the problem is kids these days.

http://www.lawrence.com/users/AlexParker/photos/2012/feb/8/229685/

“I wouldn’t have a quarrel with it,” he told KSNT. “Now, I don’t have a hoodie and I don’t have a ball cap, but if I did I’d take it off. Most people take their hats off when they go into a store anyway. Well, they used to.”

Bunten told the Topeka Capital-Journal he’s not proposing an outright ban of hoodies and hats, but wants to give stores the option to require customers to take off the items.

Brisbane, Australia, banned hoodies after a number of crimes jolted the area. Public schools in Allentown, Pa., briefly banned hoodies, and skinny jeans (“too snug for school”). Some folks in Colorado Springs, Colo., believe they’ve been unfairly targeted for wearing hoodies in stories. Stores in the Los Angeles area are requiring people to take off their hats upon entering establishments.

And 16-year-old Dale Carroll, of Manchester in England, was barred from donning a hoodie after he was found guilty of anti-social behavior.

Apparently, he and other local kids (hoods?) caused “mayhem,” which is a tall order for a young teen.

Manchester magistrates heard that
Carroll was part of a gang who caused
mayhem to residents of Collyhurst
village in the city for almost three
years.

The court heard he had attacked locals
and once attempted to cut down a CCTV
lamppost with a chainsaw.

The teenager threw fireworks at
cyclists and at one stage pulled a
person from their bike and threatened
them with an axe. He also drove a car
on to a pavement and down steps close
to the Sparrow pub in Collyhurst.

Carroll of Cheetham, Manchester, was
found guilty of anti social behaviour
and was banned from wearing a hoodie
or cap in public and from entering a
large part of Collyhurst, including
the home he shares with his mother in
Manordale Walk.

He was also prevented from
congregating with more than two
people, except family members, and
banned from possessing fireworks, axes
or chainsaws.

The proposal wasn’t discussed at the Topeka city council’s Tuesday meeting, but Councilman Andrew Gray wore a hoodie to meeting. He said it was comfortable.